[ExI] apple mothership

[BillK]

On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 6:22 PM, Adrian Tymes  wrote:
> The religious can pray.  We can argue that it accomplishes nothing, and all
> but the most ignorant prayers know it.  What is not up for serious debate is
> the amount of effort that prayer involves: trivial to none.  So, the
> religious are
> saying they are willing to undertake no real effort to assist you in your
> hardship.
>
>


Prayer is a very wide-ranging activity found in almost all religions.
But it has a different meaning in different religions, sometimes
differing between individuals in a religion.

The idea of presenting your God with a list of demands which he might
or might not fulfil is rather simplistic. This is what casual members
of Western religions might do, but I doubt if the 'faithful' do this.

'Real' prayer is quite hard religious work and usually strengthens the
faith and community solidarity of those praying. And the group
solidarity leads to the expectation that they will help other members
in difficulty.

If the person being prayed for knows about all the prayer activity,
then it is very likely that this will be beneficial for them as well.
Everybody feels better when they know the team is rooting for them.

So I don't think you can say prayer has no effect. Though it may not
produce the specific results prayed for, it has many direct and
indirect effects.


BillK


BillK